


Lazarus Ascension

by brodylover



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angel Dean Winchester, Angel Sam, Buried Alive, Episode: s04e01 Lazarus Rising, Hell, Human Castiel, Mental Illness, Torture, hypersensitive, over emotional, reverse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 15:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brodylover/pseuds/brodylover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rewrite of Lazarus Rising, but in a reverse AU. Dean and Sam are angels, with Castiel as the Righteous Man. All Cas seems to care about though is hiding away those stupid emotions and getting Claire and Amelia back once he's been brought back from the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lazarus Ascension

They swooped and gained elevation before diving around Hellfire and torture chambers which hung low in the caverns of Hell as cages, passing their garrison and leaving them without the protection of numbers. It didn't seem to matter what their mission was, their captain was always flying ahead, showing off.  
"C'mon Sammy!" the older of the two angels exclaimed, "I bet I'll get to him before he's even in your sights!"  
So a race was it? Sam rolled his eyes. "This isn't a game, Dean!"  
But Dean didn't listen. He never did. Not unless you were the Father or with direct orders from him did he listen. He tucked his wings closer to his body and plummeted, gathering speed with his momentum. 

Castiel woke with a start in the darkness and as the dirt crowded his mouth with his first inhale the panic was already starting to rise. He thought he was still in Hell, even though he had been saved. He had switched roles too, done exactly what the demons had wanted and yet he was back to being tortured. He squirmed under the earth, wishing for death, not that that would come to a dead man, his heart rate in his ears and his breathing fast and harsh, drawing in more of the dirt that coated him.  
Eventually he began to choke on the stuff and he forced himself to slow down. It was a different kind of pain than what he had felt in Hell. There it was a pain in the soul, all the way down, this was only pain in his body, deep but completely physical. This was the real world and he had been buried in it.  
He tried to breathe smoothly as he dug through the grime, pushing as much of the muck as he could out of the way. It took him a long time but he finally broke through the surface and wished that he hadn't.  
Sunlight. Honest to goodness sunlight; something that he hadn't seen anything of in his time below and had craved to see once again, almost as much as his wife and daughter. It hurt him though and he covered his eyes trying not go completely blind in the sharp radiance of it. He climbed out of the hole in the ground like a mole and dragged himself into the shade of a tree.  
He sat there for a while, looking through the lids of his eyes for seconds at a time until finally he could open his eyes to see. When he did, what he saw terrified him.  
The hole he had dug himself out of was in a field surrounded by trees that had been knocked down in a fanning pattern. It looked like a nuke had gone off right on top of it. Immediately the panic returned, forcing his adrenaline to spike so much that he could hardly think. There was fear in there too and worry about his family, but they were minor in comparison with the thundering panic.  
He needed his meds. He needed to feel human again. All of these emotions, they were too much, more powerful than he'd remembered them.  
He pushed down the panic as best he could, but he could feel it inside of him as if he had swallowed a loud storm and he started walking. His legs were weak but he drove them forward. He had to get home. He had to take his meds. He had to kiss his wife and his daughter and hold them and never let them go.  
The first place he came across was a small gas station with a grocer attached. He had taken off his over shirt in the heat and had tied it around his waist, so he was only wearing his black slacks and wife beater. It was strange, even after all of this time, he knew that this was not what he was wearing when he had died. Those clothes would be blood stained and ripped to shreds by the teeth and claws of Hellhounds. Bobby must have changed his clothes before burying him.  
Bobby, God, he'd have to call him.  
Bobby had been a friend of his fathers, if John ever had any friends that is. Regardless they had gone hunting together quite often. When John had died, traded his life for his sons, Bobby had stepped in. He became Castiel's friend, and then, pretty quickly, a better father than John had ever been. He was the one who traveled with him all over the country in their hunt of a way to save his soul from going to Hell.  
He was someone else that Castiel had left behind.  
This body though, it was different too. There was a burn scar on his shoulder that was never there before. It made him stumble from dizziness he was so confused. The scar was massive, taking up the entirety of his shoulder, shaped like a hand print. It didn't hurt though, as if it had been burned into him a long time ago.  
There was no one in the store and it looked like no one had been in a long time. Still, he was hungry and more than that, he was thirsty, so he picked the lock and went in.  
He passed the Busty Asian Beauties without even a look and headed to the big fridge in the back. He pulled out a large bottle of water and drained it, spitting a big wad of mud out as he did. Then he drank half of another one and grabbed two more. He grabbed some candy bars and snacks, these places never carried any real food, and ate as best as he was able before moving to the till, taking the money that was there as well as the small bag underneath. It wasn't very big but it was full of green leaves and papers.  
He rolled up a joint and smoked it until his lips burned within a couple of minutes. Finally. A depressant. Something that would force those dreaded emotions down. Something that would make his reactions that of a human, not so buggy and insane.  
He turned as the radio turned on all by itself. He hadn't touched it at all. Nothing was playing except for static. That wasn't a good sign. That was never a good sign. He turned it off. There were a few cans of salt on the shelf so he took one and poured a generous amount on the door frames. Static. Electronics always went nuts around demons.  
The radio turned on again, even though there was no way for demons to get in. Then he heard it. It was a low frequency, high pitched but far away and worst of all, building. He clamped his hands over his ears as the sound grew. It was rising, getting louder and higher pitched and it hurt. God, did it hurt. He scurried behind the tellers counter and huddled there, curled up as his ears started to bleed and the windows shattered, flinging glass into the room.  
As soon as the dangerous shrapnel covered every inch of the store the horrible noise stopped.  
He ran out of there, the salt now uselessly scattered all over the place and rushed to the payphone that stood outside of the shop.  
"Bobby?" he asked, "It's me, Castiel! Please, I need your help!"  
"Who is this?" Bobby asked. His voice was gruff. He didn't sound pleased.  
"Castiel. I'm at some store in the middle of nowhere, can you get me?"  
"What, you think this is funny? Well haha, I aint laughing."  
Bobby hung up. Of course he did. Castiel was dead. Dead people don't make house calls.  
Long live Castiel.  
He dug around in the stolen money and put another quarter into the phone.  
"Bobby, please don't hang up! It's me, it really is."  
"If you call here again I will kill you."  
Bobby hung up again.  
Fine. That was okay. There were tears in Castiel's eyes, even with the marijuana in his system and he was still a bit more emotional than he'd like. Nothing like his medication to make all the bad feelings go away.  
Across the street was a single car. It looked to be as well visited as the store. Castiel walked over to it, avoiding the tall grass that had grown around it. He picked the lock and climbed in, taking a second to hot wire it. With his seatbelt on he drove away from the shop with the shattered glass.

The first place he went was home. Pontiac, Illinois. He'd been lucky to be buried so close to home. He ditched the car a few blocks away, just in case the owner was still alive and suddenly wanted it back, and walked the rest of the way home. His legs were sore by the time he got there, his body not used to doing anything more than lying in the ground and rotting.  
"Hello?" he called out, opening the door.  
All of the lights were out. No one was home. Maybe they were out shopping or something. Everything was exactly how he left it. He tore off his grimy clothes and tossed them in the kitchen garbage before heading up to his and Amelia's bedroom, where he grabbed his worn black suit and put it on. It felt good to wear it again, made him feel more like who he was.  
After that came his medication, which was in the bathroom medicine cabinet and he downed it with a handful of cold water. He wanted to take more of the pills, but he didn't. He didn't need to. He knew that he only needed one.  
After a few minutes he felt human again and after a few more minutes he felt completely like himself. He was a rock. All anxieties and worries and fear were gone. He was a stone that could no longer feel just like he had always been.  
The refrigerator downstairs was empty and for a moment that clarified his thought that they were out shopping. It was too empty though, not even a bag of baby carrots left. It had been wiped clean.  
He looked through the cabinets and drawers and they were empty too. There was no food anywhere. Without knowing why he stopped his scavenging and rushed back up the stairs bolting into Claire's room. It was clean, cleaner than she actually kept it, and the window was open. There was a note on her dresser.  
He read it.  
"We've got your girl. Come to Wellis and Sultan if you ever want to see her again."  
It was signed with a sigil. It looked demonic.  
He'd sold his soul to a demon, he'd gone to Hell, and for what? He was promised that his family would be alright. Amelia would get over her illness, Claire would be kept safe. Nothing would hurt her. Demons never went back on their deals. What had happened?  
He couldn't go there. It had been far too long. He had been in Hell for forty years or four months, he wasn't quite certain. He'd found a newspaper and it said only four months, but that didn't seem logical. Regardless, there was no way Claire would still be there.

He knocked on the door. He was tired; he needed to go to bed. He couldn't sleep in that house though, it was too strange with Amelia and Claire missing. He waited a bit before knocking again.  
Bobby finally opened the door and he stood in the doorway, staring down at Castiel like he was a ghost.  
"I called." He gruffly informed.  
"Yeah." Bobby stood aside and let Castiel in. He looked like he was restraining himself. Like he wanted to hug the younger man to him, but he didn't. He stayed at an arms distance. Once Castiel was in the house he grabbed a flask and splashed the contents onto him.  
"Holy water?" Castiel sputtered and then he noticed the gun in Bobby's hand. It aimed right at him. "I'm not a demon or a shapeshifter. It's really me."  
"Prove it."  
Castiel grabbed the knife off of the table. It was silver, he'd used it himself back when he was a hunter. He rolled up his sleeve and sliced into his skin, drawing blood. He gritted his teeth to the pain, it surprised him how different pain of the flesh was to pain of the soul, before putting the knife down and looking back at Bobby.  
"It's really you?" he asked.  
"It is."  
Bobby stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Castiel's thin shoulders, squeezing just a bit too tightly. Castiel hugged him back.  
"But how?" the older man stammered, "I mean, I buried you myself!"  
"I don't know."

Pamela knew why they were coming before they even arrived. She opened the door before they rang the bell as well.  
"Oh aren't you a cutie?" she looked Castiel over, "Even if you're a widower and a little broken inside."  
"What?" he stared at her, tilting his head to the side, "I am no widower."  
"You mean you don't know?" she looked from him to Bobby, "I'm so sorry. Uh, Amelia died. She was killed by demons the night they took Claire."  
"Did you know about this?" he turned to Bobby. Pamela's knowledge of what even Castiel didn't know was too much to be psychic ability.  
"No!" Bobby promised, "I only found out Claire was missing when you told me."  
"Come in," Pamela waved, "We'll see if we can find her and whatever it was that brought you out of Hell."  
She sat at a table covered in candles. There was a map spread out underneath them.  
"I'm going to need something that Claire touched." She explained.  
Castiel pulled off his tie, "Would this work? She bought it for me."  
She put her hand on it and closed her eyes. In her other hand was a weighted cone on a thin string and she held it over the map. She said nothing, but her chin dipped to her chest and she started to sweat. The cone swung as if on a pendulum and started going faster and more erratically. Finally the thread snapped and the cone went flying across the room.  
She sighed as she released the now crumpled tie.  
"They've protected their whereabouts." She apologized, "But I do know that the demons that took her and killed Amelia still have her. They haven't killed her yet."  
Castiel nodded. He would be relieved if his medication allowed him to feel anything. Emotions weren't good though, he preferred to be this way.  
"Now then, what pulled you out of Hell? I'm going to need to touch something that they've touched too."  
Castiel looked down, as he tied his tie back on. "They didn't touch me there." He coughed.  
Pamela took her hand away from his crotch with a smile, "I changed my mind, you're not cute. You're a bit too broken."  
He shrugged but took off his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, revealing the scar on his shoulder. Bobby gasped lightly at the sight of it.  
Pamela put her hand on it and ordered them all to hold hands, which they did. She started to mutter some chant and Castiel felt drawn to join her in it, but he kept his mouth closed.  
"No Dean." She suddenly interrupted herself, "You can't threaten me. Let me see you."  
Her eyes opened and they were glowing. A hideous white light was pouring through them. She was screaming, but the brightness was loud in its own way and it pretty much covered the sounds of her screaming. The lights faded and she fell to the ground, reaching out. Castiel was at her side in an instant, trying to help her up. She looked up at him but she didn't, she couldn't. Her eyes were gone, burned out of her skull.

Bobby took her to a hospital before he and Castiel dug into research. They had learned nothing but this creature was powerful. It had a surprisingly human name though, Dean. With all of Bobby's books and the mysterious powers of Google, they found nothing. None of Bobby's contacts had any ideas either.  
They were in an abandoned barn, way out of town, with every summoning spell they could muster anyways. Bobby thought it was a bad idea, this thing had burned out Pamela's eyes just for getting a peek at it, but Castiel didn't care. He had to know. If something had pulled him out of Hell, it must have had a reason to and he wanted to know what it was.  
They also had every weapon they had with them as well. Who knew what could hurt this thing?

Dean walked up to his brother, flexing his new vessel. Even here he was showing off. He was in his early thirties with dishwater brown hair and freckles and bright green eyes. Sam's vessel was a little bit younger but about half a foot taller. His hair was longer than the angel would have liked, but he would grow accustomed to it.  
"So, where to?" Dean smirked, "There are bars all over the place. Maybe we should find one and see how much it takes to get us drunk!"  
"I don't think that's a good idea." Sam shook his head, "You just burned out some ladies eyes. I think we should apologize."  
"Hey, I warned her! No means no."  
"Okay, then we should try to meet Castiel again. I mean, we've been trying but he couldn't see us. We've got a lot to do and he needs to be in on it."  
"Uh fine!"  
And they were gone.

Moving about with a vessel is different than moving without one. Dean overshot his projector and crashed into the roof of the barn. He hit it, bounced, and rolled down the side.  
Sam was standing in front of the door, a perfect landing, like always, and he watched his superior as if he was fully retarded.  
"You ready Ms. Earhart?" he asked.  
"Shut up." Dean rolled his eyes. "Any landing you walk away from is a good landing."  
They pushed the doors to the barn open with their Grace, stepping in after it, side by side in perfect synchronization. They were angels, they needed to be intimidating, but Sam couldn't help but feel like a runway model like this.  
Castiel and Bobby stood, and one of them was so scared he almost couldn't hold his gun. Still, they both stood there, aiming. Their weapons were useless, but they made them feel like they may have some power.  
"You burned out my friends eyes." Castiel growled.  
"Yeah, I know. It was an accident." Dean smiled.  
"What are you?"  
"I'm Dean, this is my brother, Sam."  
"I asked you what you were." He cocked his rifle, aiming it at Dean's smug face.  
"Um, hi." Sam cut in, "Sorry about the mess. We're angels. Really, of the Lord."  
Castiel turned his attention, and his aim, to Sam, "Angels don't exist."  
Sam looked at him and looked into him, his head tilted. "You had faith in God once, you have faith in your plan, why not believe in angels?"  
"I lost my faith in God a long time ago. There are so many bad things in this world, but never any good. Why would I think angels exist when my wife gets cancer and I can't do anything about it but sell me soul to demons? When my mother is put on the ceiling and burnt to death, leading me down the road of shit?"  
"No." Sam stopped tilting his head, "You still have your faith in God, it's just buried away in there so deep you forgot. What you've lost is faith in yourself."  
"We can prove we're angels if you like." Dean smiled. "I know we don't look like angels now."  
Castiel glared at him.  
"C'mon, Cas."  
"It's Castiel, not Cas."  
Dean ignored him, "We tried to talk to you before, but it didn't work. All that broken glass? That was us talking with our real voices. We thought you could handle it, guess not. So here we are, wearing humans and talking better."  
"You're possessing someone?"  
"We have vessels." Sam explained, "They have to let us in and they won't die if they get damaged like when demons possess. This one was a drug addict, he actually wanted something to happen to make his life meaningful."  
"Mine was suicidal. Three attempts. Guess being a soldier made it too hard for him to be in a land of peace again. That and the daddy issues. This way he gets to see some action again."  
"That don't make it right." Bobby spoke for the first time.  
"Please, Cas." Dean took a step forward, "We're here to help. We pulled you out of Hell for a Holy purpose. The end is coming and we have to get you ready for it."  
"What are you talking about?" Castiel wanted to remind him that his name wasn't Cas but he let it go for now.  
"The end of the world." The angels spoke in unison.


End file.
